


(somehow) this is my best (emotionally)

by xwannaflyx



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:33:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26690707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xwannaflyx/pseuds/xwannaflyx
Summary: In which Sakura manages to be so emotionally incompetent that she somehow ends up in a fake relationship and also has to be assisted by Sasuke of all people.No one may know of this.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Yamanaka Ino
Comments: 6
Kudos: 121
Collections: r/NarutoFanfiction Gift Exchange





	(somehow) this is my best (emotionally)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rukosband](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rukosband/gifts).



> this was a rough process and feels rushed but its complete at least?

“So what do you think?” Ino demanded, swiping Sakura’s case file and plopping herself down on the table. Sakura glared at her old friend, considering if she should swipe the file back and ignore her. “Sakura,” Ino said sweetly with an expression that promised deadly retribution, “what. Do. You. Think.”

Leaning back, Sakura crossed her arms. “How honest do you want me to be?” she asked, scanning Ino’s expression. She did look genuinely fed up instead of just sad which had been the case before. 

Ino’s nose scrunched up delicately and Sakura firmly squashed down the part of her brain that cooed over that movement. “Honest, I suppose,” Ino said easily with a shrug. She casually tucked the report Sakura had been reading behind herself, well away from prying hands. 

Sakura scanned her expression again. She wasn’t quite as good as a Yamanaka at reading faces but taking care of patients day in and day out, particularly patients that were shinobi gave one a good awareness of how to read faces. Ino’s expression was startlingly honest. 

“I think you should stop sleeping with people that make you unhappy,” Sakura blurted before she could stop herself. 

Ino’s pale pink lips immediately tilted into a frown and Sakura intensely regretted her loss of control. “Excuse me?” Ino asked in the tone of voice she used when she was trying to remind her teammates that she could kill them with her mind. 

“You asked me to be honest,” Sakura blurted, immediately defensive. When Ino only continued to stare at her with a hard edge to her smile, Sakura threw up her hands in defeat. “He literally hit on me once when you were looking away for like five minutes. He makes fun of your teammates. He could never measure up to your potential but he tries to belittle you to make you small like he is. He seems to make you unhappy more frequently than he makes you happy.” Ino’s expression didn’t change but there was a contemplative tilt to her head. Carefully, Sakura placed one hand over Ino’s clenched fist. “Maybe you love him,” Sakura said slowly, meeting Ino’s eyes with all seriousness, “but sometimes that’s not enough.”

Ino said nothing. Gods knew that Sakura would be the poster child for understanding when love wasn’t enough to maintain a happy and healthy relationship; gods knew Sakura and Sasuke had imploded like a vicious explosive tag before managing to find the middle ground they were at now. 

Sakura let her hand fall to the table when Ino pulled her hand away. After another moment of silence in which the two stared at each other, twenty years of rivalry and friendship lending understanding and stubbornness, Sakura carefully stood. “I’m going to finish up my rounds,” she said, offering Ino the space she wanted but would never ask for. “I’ll see you after our shift?”

Ino nodded mutely, her eyes dark with thought. 

-x-

“Where the fuck is the dickface?” Naruto hissed the second Ino left to order more drinks from the bar. 

When Sai opened his mouth, probably to give a disparaging comment about Ino’s boyfriend’s dick, Sakura planted a heavy elbow in his stomach. “Shut up or I’ll rip your vocal chords out with my bare hands,” Sakura hissed back before whipping around to smile sweetly at a returning Ino.

“That’s no good then,” Naruto mumbled, strangely and annoyingly perceptive in this one instance. 

Sakura planted her other elbow in Naruto’s stomach and smiled even more sweetly when Ino stared at them strangely while placing the bottles down at the table. “What did you get for us?” Sakura asked, firmly planting herself in Ino’s direct line of sight. Ino thought it was too undignified to crane her neck to look at things past people; this would be enough. 

“Sake,” Ino said. Sakura felt herself twitch at the disconcertingly searching expression on Ino’s face but held her smile firm. After a long moment of discomfort, Ino hummed and turned away. “Where’s Chouji, Shikamaru, and Sasuke?” she asked, looking around the table. Usually both of their teams would gather seeing as coincidentally this month had them all working the same sort of shifts. 

“Eh, something came up,” Sakura said blandly with a shrug and a dig of her heel into Sai’s foot. What had come up had mostly been Sasuke’s intolerance for idiots, Chouji’s temper, and Shikamaru’s unwillingness to spend more time with a guy that he found troublesome. Sakura, however, was not sure what level of “shoot the messenger” that Ino subscribed to and would not be chancing that conversation. 

Ino’s head tilted to the side and everyone at the table hastily averted their gaze. It wasn’t that none of them trusted Ino to not read them, it was that she was too good at figuring things out even when she didn’t mean to. 

“Hey Ino, I’ll pour you a glass,” Naruto said hastily, taking the bottle from the table and gesturing for Ino to raise her cup. 

As Naruto stood to begin pouring, Ino met Sakura’s eyes. “I broke up with him you know.” Sake immediately splashed everywhere and Sakura yelped in annoyance as Naruto spun, the still pouring bottle now aimed at her. 

“Sorry, sorry!” Naruto apologized, quickly grabbing some napkins to help mop up the mess. 

Sakura glared at Naruto and Ino equally. Naruto was apologetic; Ino was anything but. She smiled with satisfaction as she delicately tucked her hair behind her ear. “You were being so obvious, hun,” Ino teased.

Sakura sighed deeply as she resigned herself to the feel of damp clothing and scanned Ino’s expression. Despite the teasing tilt to her chin, there was something sad in the corners of her lips. Sakura pinched her lips together and shrugged uncomfortably. There was most likely never going to be a relationship she fully approve of for Ino because Ino was awesome and deserved great things. On the other hand, Ino also deserved to be happy and relationships often made her happy. On the other, other hand, a lot of the people she dated seemed like wastes of space. “Sorry,” Sakura finally said reluctantly, liberally applying her elbows until her teammates also mumbled condolences. 

Ino flicked her hair over her shoulder and gave all three of them a sweet smile, “he wasn’t good enough for me anyway,” she said easily, her face a clean mask of arrogance. Sakura nodded firmly, and silently poured Ino a far cleaner cup of sake. 

-x-

“Where the fuck is she,” the utterly unpleasant, thankfully ex-boyfriend of Ino demanded marching into the emergency room. 

Sakura, thoroughly hungover and already in a bad mood, looked up from her patient at the disturbance to her usually orderly emergency room shift. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you don’t require medical assistance,” one poor intern said, trying to stand between the irate ex and the rest of the hospital. 

Sakura mentally made a note to give her a positive review during inspection for stepping up, despite the rather garish orange of her scrubs. “Get out of my way!” he snapped, shoving the girl back. Sakura’s eyes narrowed; no one was allowed to bully her interns except for her. Who did that idiot think he was?

The guy spun around before narrowing on her. “You!” he snarled, stepping up as if she was supposed to find him intimidating. 

Sakura eyed him coolly. “Me,” she agreed, pasting on a customer service smile. “Unless you’re here for an injury, sir customer, I’m going to have to ask you to stop making a fuss and get out of the emergency room, please.”

“What the fuck did you say to her?” he demanded, marching right up into her space. “Why the fuck did she break up with me?”

Probably because you’re a waste of space, she thought while keeping her expression pleasant. “I’m sure whoever you’re speaking of was acting in a reasonable manner in response to your own actions,” Sakura said benignly, dredging up a very good facsimile of one of Sai’s smiles. She watched the flinch on his muscles with satisfaction. “Now as I’ve said—”

“She broke up with me with a single message!” he snapped. 

Well, Sakura reflected, looking at the petty man, Ino did get rather vindictive when she was dumping people. But on the other hand, this man had also just walked into his ex’s place of work and made a huge scene so which was worse, she wondered. “Sir—”

“And what right do you have to question our relationship?”

Sakura felt her expression freeze on her face. Her smile stretched wider as she gritted her teeth. This fucking  _ worm _ thought that she had no right to interfere in the relationship he used to hold with her best friend that she had known for over a decade. This useless waste of oxygen would stand before her and undermine her right to stand beside Ino when she was the one that had stood here this entire time, held Ino’s hand over breakups and happiness and held back her hair over breakdowns. He thought because their connection had never been romantic she had no right to interfere?

“I said,” he snarled, stepping into her space and shoving her back half a step, “what right—”

“Sir,” Sakura snarled, gripping his impudent hand with a vicious flare of chakra. “Please listen carefully. Regardless of how deep and emotional your connection may have been with Ino, I have every right to stand here and judge you because I am her  _ best friend _ .”

“That’s nothing—”

“And,” she snapped, losing her fraying grip on her temper, “as of yesterday, we are also dating exclusively. Sorry side piece, she’s lost interest in you but if it was anyone’s fault it was yours. Now get the fuck out of my emergency room.” When he opened her mouth to argue again, Sakura leaned closer and gave him a smile she had copied off Sai after he had decimated the enemy and been covered in blood. “Sir,” she said, saccharine sweet and viciously sharp. She gripped his wrist with an insignificant fraction of her strength and watched him pale, “or I’ll give you a reason to stay in an emergency room.”

After some more blustering and what was likely a handprint bruise on his wrist, Sakura watched in satisfaction as he fled from the emergency room. “Everyone back to work,” she said cheerfully, giving her interns a warning smile. Everyone scrambled back to their stations and she turned back to her original patient with a smile. 

-x-

“So,” Ino said nonchalantly when Sakura’s defenses were down because she was tired and had just come off a twelve hour shift, “what’s this I hear about our sordid affair?”

Sakura, who had been on the verge of a nap and trying to chug a bottle of water, immediately spat it out all over the floor. “What?” she managed to squeak out, staring at Ino with the expression of something trapped.

Ino’s smile was almost gentle and Sakura abruptly remembered the fearful rumors that surrounded Ino in the Torture and Interrogation division. “Oh I’m not displeased,” she purred, leaning closer. She planted one hand on the table and leaned over Sakura with a gentle smile and Sakura felt all her higher brain functions shutdown. “I actually thought it was very amusing.” 

The curl of Ino’s blood red lips, Sakura thought with a rare desperation, could make anyone fall to their knees. “Oh,” she squeaked again, clenching her hands onto the chair and distantly hearing the faint crunch of it giving way under her strength. “That’s good,” she replied, her voice running through several more octaves than usual.

“In fact,” Ino said, sitting back down in her seat with one of her mischievous smiles. “I actually thought that this would be helpful.” Her smile was bright and Sakura thought it was, unfortunately, quite a lot more attractive than even her dangerously seductive smile. “He was quite a bit clingier than my other ex’s and I want to focus on my new research project anyway.”

“Oh.” Sakura barely remembered Ino mumbling about the details of her proposal, pacing back and forth in the break room and her hair swept into an unkept bun, “the one for nerve damage?” she asked.

The smile Ino directed at her was dazzling in its joy, “Yeah!” she exclaimed, grasping both of Sakura’s hands in excitement. “I finally got it improved and I know that it’ll be super helpful for my colleagues in T&I and even Tsunade-sama is really excited to see what sort of results we can get!”

As Ino became more and more enthusiastic in her explanations, her hands waving through the air and expression glowing, Sakura sighed in resignation. Apparently, she had a girlfriend who could extensively speak about nerve damage and the various pathways through which one could fix such scarring. She was screwed. 

-x-

“Oh my god, she’s so hot sometimes,” Sakura groaned, her vision a little fuzzy and everything gentled and soft. Sasuke grunted, taking another swig from his own bottle. “Someone came in with spinal damage and she could have them feeling sensation again in like three sessions, Sasuke, do you know how hot that is?”

“Decidedly not,” Sasuke grunted, wondering when the two of them had gone from enemies to ex’s to miserably commiserating about their crushes to each other. “Why don’t you complain to Naruto?” he complained, taking another hearty swallow of the shitty sake that Sakura was fond of.

“Because he’ll blab to like the entire village,” Sakura snapped back, her expression sharpening for a split second before returning to the vague blurriness of the sloshed. “The rule one of fake relationships is no one talks about fake relationships.”

Sasuke let out a very deep sigh as Sakura took an unhealthy chug from her own bottle. “Have you,” he grimaced, deeply wishing he didn’t have to be in this place, this situation, and with drunken Sakura. “Have you considered just talking to her?”

Sakura whipped around to stare at him and almost fell facefirst into the dirt. “Sasuke!” she cried, her voice almost teary with emotion. 

“Oh no,” he said faintly, attempting to rise too late.

Sakura tackled him into a hug with all the coordination and exuberance of a sugar high child. “Did you suggest communication? Look at you all grown up!” she crooned, hugging him to her chest and petting his hair. 

“My god,” Sasuke grumbled, muffled by her arm. “What did I see in you.”

“We’re both very attracted to competence,” Sakura said sagely, continuing to play with his hair with the fascination of the truly wasted. “Competence is very sexy.” There was a long pause, then to Sasuke clear annoyance, Sakura let out a long whine, “Sasuke, do you know how sexy it is when Ino finishes a procedure in like half the time it's supposed to take?”

“My god,” Sasuke mumbled, trying to bury his face in his hands but already trapped by his (unfortunately) friend. “No, but I believe you’ll probably tell me.”

As Sakura began to gush about some procedure that Ino had completed the other day in the hospital that had been “truly flawless” Sasuke became very resolved to 1. Get so fucking drunk he couldn’t remember any of this conversation and 2. Prevent this conversation from being necessary again. 

-x-

“How the fuck does this keep happening to us?” Ino asked flatly, clutching a towel around herself and glaring at the locked door.

“The fellows must be playing a joke on us!” Sakura said with a guilty, fake laugh while plotting Sasuke’s utter demise. For the tenth time in the past two weeks, she and Ino had managed to get locked in a room together. It just so happened that this room was the bathroom and Ino had left her change of clothes in the locker because she hadn’t been expecting the useless, never locked door connecting the two to actually be locked from the outside. (How the fuck had Sasuke even managed to get into the girl’s locker room and bathroom in order to pull this shit off?) She hastily pulled off her sweater and passed it over to Ino, trying to ignore the gleam of wet skin and the slipping towel, “here.”

“Thanks,” Ino grumbled, yanking the sweater on and rearranging the towel into a skirt wrap instead. “What the fuck did you do to the fellows?” Ino added, fixing her with an annoyed glare. 

“What?” 

“The pranks. What did you do to piss them off to continuously prank us for two weeks?” In o managed to pull her damp hair out of the sweater and began to try to squeeze the water out of it. 

Piss off her teammate by getting wasted and complaining about feelings. “Nothing,” she blurted, a little too defensively. 

Ino’s gaze suddenly became concerningly more calculative. “Oh,” she asked, turning her full attention to Sakura. Sakura resisted the urge to freeze like a deer and merely offered the least shaky smile she could muster. “You did nothing,” she said slowly, scanning Sakura’s expression, “to the fellows.”

Sakura nodded mutely. 

Sakura resisted the urge to flinch when Ino smiled. “Sakura,” she said, altogether too pleasantly, “you do remember how long we’ve been friends, right?” she asked slowly.

Sakura almost scowled at the flicker memory of that stupid, completely irrelevant ex speaking about their decades long friendship and rivalry as if it was paltry compared to the connection he had once shared with Ino because of some shitty sex. “Yes.”

Ino head cocked to the side and Sakura almost laughed at the incongruent image. The sharpness of a Yamanaka assessment wrapped in a towel, wet hair, with the backdrop of a bathroom made for a funny image. Or at least, it would have made for a funny image if it wasn’t for the terror of having that gaze turn on her. “Something about that last sentence made you scowl,” Ino mused, tapping her chin. “And you were definitely lying about the fellows and pranks.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sakura said clearly, deciding to embrace the tried and true Naruto method of playing stupid since Sasuke was a traitorous dick and Sai would jsut blurt completely true very embarrassing information. 

Ino’s expression was clearly unimpressed. “My god, you’re going for Naruto avoidance tactics? Why, are you mad at Sasuke?” Unfortunately, Sakura was not completely able to prevent her grimace. “ _ Are you mad at Sasuke? _ ” Ino repeated, squinting. 

“No,” Sakura said flatly, unable to help the way her brows wrinkled together. 

Ino looked at her strangely. “I feel like this would be faster if you opted for Sai methods instead,” Ino finally said with a sigh.

“I’m definitely not doing any Sai methods.”

Ino squinted at her again, her expression slightly more suspicious. “Because articulate bulldozing would not work for you at this moment?” she asked. Sakura grimaced further as she watched Ino run calculations. “It’s either something bad or something embarrassing and bad enough that you’d panic resort to using your idiot teammate’s methods of coping but also you’re mad at Sasuke. How on earth is acting stupid supposed to help you?” she demanded. Sakura resisted the urge to think Ino’s thinking scowl was kind of cute. “Have all these pranks been your fault?”

Sakura, to her utter demise, was unable to help the guilty squeak that escaped her. 

“ _ These pranks have been your fault? _ ”

“Not exactly?” Sakura winced at the disbelieving tilt of Ino’s lips. “It’s not completely my fault,” she added, far too defensive.

“Is it Sasuke’s fault, then?” Ino asked, crossing her arms. Sakura felt herself wince again and cursed the easy familiarity she had with Ino; if Ino was an enemy she wouldn’t have revealed a single stupid detail. “So this is Sasuke’s fault. For whatever reason your emotionally stunted ex is currently attempting to lock the two of us into rooms together.”

“I mean,” Sakura frowned as she thought through the words, “yes?”

“Is this like super delayed revenge for when we started trying to hook him up with literally anyone else in his fanclub because he seemed depressed?” Ino grumbled, but she seemed like she was mostly speaking to herself. “No, he’s not the sort to wait on his revenge. Which means this is either him actually trying to be helpful which I thought we had already talked to him about never doing or him getting revenge on something recent.” Ino’s sharp blue gaze fixed on Sakura with the intent of a predator, “something involving you.”

Sakura frowned slightly at the memory of Sasuke, very awkward and clearly annoyed attempts to get her mind off of drama. He had very much been avoiding her when she wanted to go drinking but on the other hand he hadn’t been as antagonistic as usual at the team dinners. “Oh no,” she hissed, realizing that locking her in with Ino was less revenge and more his attempt to help. Or maybe it was a little revenge but the intent was good. “Ugh.”

“So his emotionally constipated ass is attempting to make us emotionally communicate by locking us in rooms together because he thinks that’s actually something that works?” Ino asked, watching Sakura’s expression switch from realization to horror to annoyance. “So you somehow managed to be so emotionally constipated that  _ Sasuke  _ felt bad for you?”

Sakura’s nose wrinkled delicately. “That’s bad, isn’t it,” she mused.

The look Ino gave her was exasperated but inexplicably fond. “Yes, hun,” Ino said with a slight laugh. “Once you get beaten by Sasuke in emotional competency you need to reconsider your life choices.”

Sakura wrinkled her nose again and let out a rather deep sigh, “okay.” She paused and cleared her throat as Ino cocked her head to the side and watched in interest. “Okay,” she said a little more firmly and Ino watched in amusement as she straightened her shoulders. “I can do this,” Sakura mumbled, tugging briefly at the ends of her hair before meeting Ino’s eyes, resolute. “Hi,” she said, a little awkwardly.

Ino hid her smile and also straightened. “Hello.”

“So you know how we’re fake dating?” Sakura asked, her hands clenching and unclenching at her side. Ino couldn’t help the smile this time and silently nodded. “So do you wanna try real dating this weekend? Dinner at that one restaurant you’ve been wanting to try but you didn’t go with any of your past dates because it was cheap and if you were going to have to waste your time with some idiot you said they better pay.” Sakura stumbled over her words for a moment, “not that I’m cheap. If you want to go somewhere expensive I can pay. But also I think I can make better conversation.”

Ino, standing in a borrowed sweater and damp towel couldn’t help her laugh. “Sure,” she agreed, meeting Sakura’s flustered expression with amusement. “We can go to the restaurant I’ve been complaining about not being able to go to. And,” she added, her lips twitching up into a smirk, “I’ll make Sasuke pay for locking me in here without my clothes.”

“Okay,” Sakura agreed, nodding enthusiastically, “date. You said yes. For real.” Sakura cleared her throat, nodded firmly, then wheeled around and hastily escaped through the locked door through liberal application of strength.

Ino felt a flush of warm fondness as she watched Sakura’s hasty retreat and eyed the broken door. Friends for years and this idiot didn’t know her well enough to see through one of her machinations. If anything, she was going to end up owing that idiot Sasuke dinner and she really hated owing a rival, even one that was an ex. With a much softer smile than she would usually show to others, Ino walked out of the bathroom, intent on changing into actual clothing and possibly cornering Sakura for some teasing. 


End file.
